Friday night a tornado ripped through parts of the Mississippi Delta and decimated the town of Rolling Fork. The tornado was on the ground for over two hours and nearly covered 60 miles as it crossed Mississippi.
The tornado has been given an EF-4 rating with wind speeds of 170 mph. This is done by assessing the damage in the path of where the tornado struck.
The storm prompted the National Weather Service office in Jackson to issue a tornado emergency. This differs from a tornado warning as it means this storm has a tornado on the ground and it is causing significant damage and threat to human lives.
Unfortunately, once all was said and done, there were 17 deaths from this tornado and at least 15 injuries suffered by Rolling Fork and Silver City residents. This is not an uncommon scene for the area as tornadoes have torn through here causing significant damage. The most recent tornado in this area was in 2021 when an EF-1 moved nearby Yazoo City just a few miles east of this incident. The last EF-4 to occur in the Mississippi Delta (on the Mississippi side) was in 2010 also occurring in Yazoo City.
To put add even more context as to how prone this area is for tornadoes, the second deadliest tornado in U.S. history occurred in the Mississippi Delta back in 1840 killing 317 people that day.
